Aquarius Records closed in 2016. This site is an archive — a place to rediscover their extraordinary music recommendations. Nothing here is for sale.
Showing results 101 through 108 of 108.
VIA SINISTRAEThe Tower(Black Note)cd-r$ 14.98
Via Sinistrae's album The Tower looms like a foreboding industrial thunderhead, conjuring apocalyptic visions of claustrophobic chambers and clammy chemically battered flesh. Well, at least it did for this listener! Heavily processed voices, sand-blown rhythmic passages and noise bursts lurk and lunge out of these thickly shadowed soundscapes draped in murky grey and brown hues. Recorded live.
WHITE STAINSExploratorium(Eroto Tox Decodings)cd$ 14.98
While it's been noted that White Stains began in the mid-'80s as a garage band out of Sweden, the earliest known recordings of the group were inextricably linked to Genesis P-Orridge, as a couple of the White Stains members had founded a Swedish chapter of P-Orridge's Temple of Psychick Youth. By 1994, White Stains had decided to call it quits, leaving behind a series of dark electronic eccentricities over the course of 5 albums, including one album in the legendary Anckarstrom series which included exceptional releases from The Hafler Trio, John Duncan, Arcane Device, Zbigniew Karkowski, Phauss, and the Sons of God. Exploratorium is a collection of their more esoteric and abstract recordings, many of which had originated as soundtracks to experimental films and a couple of tracks from that Anckarstrom album. White Stains infuse an absurdly darkened glee to their synthesizer driven tunes, resembling the clunky fumble of Hans Edler or Keuhkot with plenty of Teutonic militant Der Blutharsch-esque overtones.
WIJLEN WIJs/t(Aesthetic Death)cd$ 15.98
Another�disc that had us sold before we even got to the music. The band name alone, Wijlen Wij? We're a sucker for whatthefuck band names... And the fact that this Belgian horde are made up of a veritable who's who of doooom loooominaries, folks from bands like AQ faves Fall Of The Grey Winged One, Pantheist, Until Death Overtakes Me, In Somnis and a bunch more. Throw in a totally black cover except for the name of the band, and that it was released on Aesthetic Death, home to mighty UK doomlords Esoteric... So yeah, we were expecting some serious doom, the lots-of-o's kind of doom, as in dooooooooooooooooom, but maybe with twice that many o's, or heck three times as many o's, but what we got, while still doomy as fuck and seriously crushingly heavy was a whole lot weirder.� The record opens with some delicate Renn Faire sort of flutter, organ and chanted vocals, very medieval sounding, a bit Viking even, then a super King Arthur sort of melody joins the fray, and we were beginning to think maybe we had the wrong idea about these guys, until the guitars kick in, easily some of the thickest most distorted, downtuned filthy ugly guitar sounds EVER. And the coolest part is that the medieval intro, wasn't just an intro, the song continues on with that sort of seasick Viking waltz, but now dripping with oozing blackdoom riffage, a bizarre epic medieval funeral doooooooooooom. The next track ditches the Renn flair, and instead offers up a gorgeous crushing slow crawl, but with moaning melancholy cello drifting amidst the pounding sludge like black smoke. This is serious doom, it's got the classic sorrowful vibe of bands like My Dying Bride, but it's delivered though the cracked filth crusted sludge of bands like Esoteric or Bunkur. And then out of the blue (or black perhaps is more appropriate) comes some haunting little Trollmann like synth melody, or even what sounds like some Morricone Western style harmonica, that drifts along hauntingly before slipping back under, and the band returns to some impossibly slow trudge, through a barren black landscape. One of those rare records than manages to be so impossibly and crushingly heavy at the same time that it's utterly haunting and beautiful.� Absolutely our new favorite doom record. Hands down. Worthy of more o's that we have any right to be dealing out. Essential for fans of Bunkur, Planet Aids, Winter, diSEMBOWELMENT, Esoteric, Catacombs, Wereju, and all other wielders of black hole heaviness...
WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOMTwo Hunters(Southern Lord)cd$ 13.98
Southern Lord snagged 'em. Good call, since Olympia, WA's Wolves In The Throne Room are one of the absolute best things that US Black Metal has got going right now. Sure there's lots of awesome, oxymoronically one-man "hordes" (Leviathan, Xasthur, Draugar) but no offense meant, this is an actual band, one that you can go see live, y'know? And they slay. Firmly (and intentionally and worshipfully) in the tradition of the now legendary San Francisco epic black metal act Weakling, WITTR build the same sort of trance-inducing, technically tight, extended compositions (here, up to over 18 minutes in length) of unending grimness and sheer majestic, melancholic beauty. Post-rock dynamics, classical-sounding female vocals, newagey synth drone, acoustic intros, and other more-prog-than-metal elements are utilized with ease, while the music, in all its ambient-stormclouds-pregnant-with-ominous-doom glory, is such that would waft and wail through the tall trees of the dark forest of black metal myth exclusively... a forest that these dwellers of the Pacific Northwest can easily conjure, living amidst dark primeval woods for real. AQ customers of the black metal persuasion won't need much persuading, WITTR's previous record Diadem Of 12 Stars is one of our biggest black metal sellers already and this new album has been eagerly anticipated. And it's good. As if there was much doubt of that. Packaged in a handsome and very sinister looking miniature lp-style gatefold sleeve, this cd is another stellar offering showing that these Wolves are in the Throne Room not as interlopers, but by divine (or, rather, diabolical) right of rule. Along with Bay Area bands like Ludicra, Leviathan, Asunder, and Hammers Of Misfortune, WITTR are leading the pack in putting the West Coast on the map as the home of avant-metal artistry, Nordically blackened or otherwise opposed to the norm.
WOODEN SHJIPSSummer Of Love (aka Sol '07)(A Sick Thirst / Holy Mountain)7"$ 5.98
A single song teaser to these local boys' long awaited full length, coming soon on Holy Mountain. And if you've been digging their past releases (a 7" and a 10") then this brand new single will definitely hit the spot. More of what we love, a relentless, neverending blown out fuzzy groove, all warm whirring organ, fuzz guitar, and throbbing bass, the drums a super solid motorik framework, the vocals sort of sung / spoken, reverb and delay EVERYWHERE, the strangest addition is the haunting horns on the A side, that drift and moan ghost like over the fuzz jam below. One song spread out over two sides, by side 2, the band have locked it in and sound like they are never gonna stop. A looped cyclical minimal fuzzrock jam that sounds almost like some crazy crossbreeding of the Doors and Spacemen 3, which should appeal to Circle, Salvatore and Magyar Posse fans as much as all the druggy psychrock dronesters out there. Red vinyl, in plain plastic sleeves (like past releases) and all proceeds go to Food Not Bombs...
XELA WITH GREG HAINES & DANNY SAULThe Late Chapel(Type)lp$ 14.98
Ultra limited one sided vinyl only release from AQ faves Xela. Already out of print, we have the last copies anywhere. A single long form composition, more classical and minimal sounding than the most recent Xela full length, beginning with gentle simple piano, tinkling chimes, distant whirs, folky steel string twang, subtle percussion, a subtle mixture of cello, piano, vocals, acoustic and electric guitars and effects, all woven into a lovely stretch of active ambience. Soon though this tranquil drift is enveloped in a thick sonic haze of blurred buzz, and the instruments all seem to be deeply effected by the change, the guitars begin to stutter and glitch, the piano detunes and becomes more atonal, throwing out dense little flurries of notes, steel strings scrape and creak and groan, becoming more and more intense, building to a lengthy drone, everything whipped into a frenzy, swirling whirring, intense and dense but still strangely melodic and quite lovely. Pressed on thick vinyl, packaged in plain white sleeves, each one stamped and hand numbered, limited to 300 copies, and again, already out of print, these are the last copies ever...
YONKERS, MICHAELGrimwood(De Stijl)cd$ 13.98
Is this a lost Bert Jansch or Fresh Maggots record? Sure sounds like some beautifully arcane British Acid Folk, or old timey Appalachian balladry, but with some anachronistically strange lo-fi recording effects and drones and other weirdness going on. Like a psychedelic John Jacob Niles perhaps. Sounds like it's either really old or could be totally recent like something by Mike Wexler, or even Aaron Ross. Oh wait, it's Michael Yonkers?! The outsider garage guitar visionary whose Microminiature Love album from 1969 is an absolute all-time favorite around here. Wow, this is not the sound we usually expect from him. First of all, instead of amped up electricity, it's all about acoustic guitar, and even more surprising, it was recorded the same year as Microminiature Love. Geez, this dude never stops surprising us. Released on vinyl in 1974, Grimwood pretty much sank without a trace. But he's definitely having a prolonged renaissance now with two brand new albums and possibly more reissues in the works. Definitely for fans of Comus, Jan Dukes De Grey and everyone mentioned above!
YOUNG MARBLE GIANTSColossal Youth & Collected Works(Domino)3cd$ 19.98
Young Marble Giants' minimal masterpiece, Colossal Youth, receives yet another reissue (the fifth or sixth to date)! This one is extra super special because it's a three cd set which compiles ALL of their previously released music! So you not only get the fifteen songs that make up the Colossal Youth album, but also a five song Peel Session from 1980, six songs from their 1981 Testcard EP, three from the Final Day single, sixteen from their 2000 Salad Days album, and their first ever recorded appearance titled "Ode To Booker T" from the 1979 compilation Is The War Over?. Needless to say, it's a cause for celebration! Absolutely essential listening. This UK trio's existence was ever so fleeting, and they only had one proper album, but what a leftfield classic it is. It sounds *totally unique*, like nothing before and pretty much nothing since. Amid the aggression and edginess of the post-punk movement, YMG emerged as a remarkably stark, understated and utterly engaging wonder. It has made an enormous impact in the many years since its original release in 1980. Seriously, this is one of those classic albums that has influenced tons of musicians (Hole even covered "Credit in the Straight World", but don't hold that against YMG!). It ranks up there with, like, The Velvet Underground's first record, Neu!, the Raincoats, Pere Ubu's Modern Dance, etc., etc. Their music's simplicity is deceptive. A very hushed, metronome-sounding drum machine ticks out the tireless beat of each song like a friendly clock, and its neutral tone is also reflected in Alison Statton's girlish, earnest, not always pitch-perfect vocals as well as in the muted string strum of Stuart Moxham's electric guitar. Spartan, angular strikes from the same guitar punctuate this steady atmosphere as a frail organ does its wheezing, bleating melodic best and Philip Moxham's rubbery bass line hesitantly bends and bounds. Minimal and no-frills, yes, but somehow there's so much more going on, and so much more expressed than its quietness belies. The songs are tiny and simple and total perfection. Powerful and totally f**king timeless and yes, very highly recommended. As we mentioned above, we believe this just might be the fifth or sixth edition, and we hope that it's kept available forever and ever and ever!